What Can Twitter Tell Us About The 2012 Presidential Race?

Normally I wouldn’t write about politics. Don’t get me wrong. I love politics. Not for the reasons that many like politics, but because it is simply a great representation of marketing strategy in action. The candidates develop a “talking point,” test it out via polls, say it on national television, read the reaction via research, and then adapt their strategy accordingly. And this can happen within hours. From a marketing strategy perspective, the political season gives us great insight into American consumers and what messages resonate. For me, the presidential elections are akin to the Superbowl or World Series – it’s simply great sport.

While I personally like following politics, I don’t believe in talking about my point of view regarding the candidates. However, I started poking around on Twitter and was curious as to what the candidates’ capability in managing one small marketing channel might say about their overall marketing strategy and/or prowess. And while it is only one channel, a recent article in Ad Age indicates that 88% of social media users are registered voters, so whether a candidate is social media savvy seems to be relevant.

Below is a list of the number of people following each of the candidates and their Klout score, a measure of influence, as of 30 October 2011.

Candidate

Followers

Klout Score

Newt Gingrich

1,339,382

69

Mitt Romney

151,585

75

Herman Cain

145,260

80

Michele Bachmann

109,004

69

Rick Perry

100,018

77

Ron Paul

93,225

71

Benchmarking

Obama

10,870,281

88

Sarah Palin

685,164

70

While the ability to manage one marketing channel might or might not mean much in the final tally, it does provide insight on the strength of the candidates’ social media activities. We saw in the last election how important social media was in creating a grass roots movement and my guess is that an ability to effectively leverage social media will be no less important in 2012.

There were a few items that surprised me about the data. First, I expected Mitt Romney to have a much stronger position. He’s been working on this election for years (not months) and supposedly has an exceptional team. I expected to see this play out in the number of people following him. However, it could be that he appeals to an older, non-Twitter crowd. Or, it could be that he has amassed the traditional political army of operatives who are woefully unprepared to market in the 21st century.

The second surprise was how well Newt was doing. Again, given all of the turmoil in the early days of his campaign, I expected to see a smaller following. Perhaps the following has something to do with his television commentating as Sarah Palin also has a strong following.

The third surprise was Herman Cain’s Klout score, as he is nearly at Obama levels. Although I don’t have his followership scores over time, my guess is that Herman Cain is probably moving the fastest in terms of gaining followers, in concert with his meteoric polling results.

So what can Twitter tell us about the 2012 election? I suppose that if the election were based on social media savvy, it appears that the Republican party is generally outmatched by the Obama machine. If any of the Republican candidates hope to have a serious run, they might take a page out of the Obama playbook and identify leading private sector marketers to help with their campaigns.